Home Sweet Home (For Today, Anyway)

We spent all last week in Charleston.

The whole trip was sort of a last minute thing. My cousin, Allyson, called a few weeks ago and was like, “hey, would you be interested in coming to Charleston and keeping Jackson one evening for us to go to a concert? You can stay for as long as you’d like.” Is that really something I have to think about? I was more than happy to drive the short distance to Charleston to hang with Jackson for a bit. Seeing the ocean was an added bonus!

Originally, I was just gonna stay thru Monday or Tuesday. I knew I’d be super tired from the week at camp. But then she called again. This time, she wanted to see if Preston would be interested in joining. Again, there wasn’t much to think about. He was exhausted from camp (even more so than me), and school was starting soon. Time at the beach sounded like the perfect ending to his summer.

And it was just that.

It DOES NOT get better than ocean + marsh views.

We loved every single thing about our house. Wait. I take that back. There were too many stairs. I’m too old for stairs. Other than that, it was perfect.

The week was pretty perfect too. Wait. I take that back. I was forced to play games. And I loathe games. Other than that, it was perfect.

Two things happened that caused my soul to swell.

One – Preston learned to surf.

Pictured above: Preston, Alek, and their instructor. Alek was not sad about their instructor. She was his age and super cute!

If you know me at all, you know that I’ve held a special place in my heart for surfing since I was in middle school. I grew up watching alllll the competitions, was head-over-heels in love with Kelly Slater, and every inch of all four of my bedroom walls was covered in surfing posters and magazine clippings.

My friend, Heather, and I had a group of surfing friends at Ocean Lakes we hung out with. They took us out one afternoon to teach us the sport. I lasted a whopping thirty-ish minutes before becoming painfully aware that my knees would not cooperate. (Makes sense now, after dislocating my patella at eighteen years old – I learned that my knees aren’t properly aligned) I remained obsessed, but Boogie Boards were the extent of my participation.

Preston surfing meant everything to me!

Two – we swam with dolphins.

That’s right. Most of you probably know that I LOVE dolphins! I swam with them once in the Bahamas, but nothing will ever compare to this past week!

We kept seeing the same three dolphins each day. How do we know they were the same ones? We don’t. But we named them, so humor me. Zebra (pronounced like Debra with a Z), Timothy, and Daphne-Delilah.

They literally played right in front of our house every single morning and afternoon. One day, in particular, they were SO close to us. Like, within ten feet. I could have cried. I wish I had pics, but obviously I didn’t have my phone in the water.